David Ogilvy - Agency Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

View all David Ogilvy Quotes
The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.

David Ogilvy
Make sure that your agency makes a profit. Your account competes with all the other accounts in your agency. If it is unprofitable, it is unlikely that the management of the agency will assign their best men to work on it. And sooner or later they will cast about for a profitable account to replace yours.

David Ogilvy
To advertisers: "Do not compete with your agency in the creative area. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?"

David Ogilvy
The biggest problem which besets almost every agency is the problem of producing good campaigns. Copywriters, art directors, and television producers are easily come by, but the number of men who can preside over an agency's entire creative output - perhaps a hundred new campaigns every year - can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. These rare trumpeter swans must be capable of inspiring a motley crew of writers and artists; they must be sure-footed judges of campaigns for a wide range of different products; they must be good presenters; and they must have a colossal appetite for midnight oil.

David Ogilvy
If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising.

David Ogilvy
Managing an advertising agency isn't all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.

David Ogilvy
It is important to admit your mistakes, and to do so before you are charged with them. Many clients are surrounded by buckpassers who make a fine art of blaming the agency for their own failures. I seize the earliest opportunity to assume the blame.

David Ogilvy